


Living The Dream

by Britpacker



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:12:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8065042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Malcolm’s day has not started well. In cheering himself up with some treasured memories at his post, might he be in danger of making it even worse?





	1. Prologue - Action Stations

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Set somewhere unspecified during Season 2, based on a pessimist’s view of a reasonably new relationship and set over the course of an uneventful day. I hope the switches between present and past make sense!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm's bored at his station. This is, oddly enough, a very dangerous situation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short "present moment" chapters like this frame the flashbacks as our Armoury Officer lets his mind wander.

The bridge was totally silent; an unusual occurrence, Malcolm Reed mused as he squinted at the data scrolling in a garish stream across his console. Travis hunched over the helm, absently minimal tapping course corrections; Captain Archer lolled in the central chair staring blankly through the main viewscreen. Beyond him the two women gazed at their stations, as deep in concentration as the armoury officer supposed he might seem.

God, he was bored! 

The day had begun with a blur of shrill noise and panicked activity. Then the holler of _"Action stations!"_ that had prevented his cosy pre-alarm cuddle had proven to be a false alarm - a ghost ship conjured within the sensors from a cloud of turbulent nebula gas. 

Action stations! What, precisely, was so terrible about calling it _battle stations_ , anyway? If he had to drag his officers out of bed without so much as a snog in the morning, couldn't that namby-pamby _lets-no-offend-the-neighbours-even-if-they-do-want-to-blow-our-heads-off_ twat of a captain do it _properly?_

He was, Reed conceded reluctantly, being unfair. Captain Archer's unmilitary tendencies had their limits and when Enterprise came under attack he could fight like Nelson himself. It was simply a fact that if a chap was to be denied his sleepy pre-breakfast grope for a call to arms, he might feel less put out by a more bloodthirsty summons.

Heat spread through his stomach, seeping south. Cautiously, Reed shifted on the edge of his uncomfortable seat, inching his feet further apart to accommodate the unwelcome yet irresistible pressure growing between his thighs. It wasn't a bad day. Apart from falling out of bed in a panic before zero six twenty hours, nothing had actually gone _wrong_ to put him into the faint tizzy he'd been trapped in all morning. 

It was just that a day which didn't start with Trip Tucker's tongue down the back of his throat wasn't a proper day at all, and he had the ticklish, unsettled sensation in the nether regions to prove it.

Before they had declared themselves - trapped in a dark passage, running out of air (again) hearing the muffled voices of their shipmates desperately trying to dig through the rockfall with bare hands - he had thought things couldn't get worse. Countless hours had been spent fantasising at his post, seeing that glorious golden body instead of the routine sensor readings rolling across his screen, shuffling to keep a monumental hard-on hidden from the rest of the bridge crew when his imagination went a tad too far. More shifts than he could count had ended with a pained farewell squeak and an ungainly waddle to the nearest place of privacy. 

He'd rather expected sexual activity - rampant sexual activity - would put a stop to all of that.

From a great distance he heard the coldly clipped voice of the woman occupying the other aft station and a wry smile twitched one corner of his mouth. _Just goes to prove what logic does for you, Malcolm my lad._

These last few weeks... Reed had never experienced anything like it, his hormones blazing like a forest fire, the tender, liquid sensation in his testes swelling at the smallest provocation into something wonderful, and then...

He sighed, oblivious to the piercing glance from the Vulcan across the bridge. His eyelashes fluttered, the image before him blurring as memories of that glorious first morning-after took hold...


	2. Prologue - Action Stations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being bored at work is dangerous. Malcolm's mind has wandered to a better morning. Things will get smuttier as the fic progresses.

Nothing had changed, yet everything was subtly different: colours brighter, definition sharper. Lieutenant Reed sauntered onto the bridge with a cheery "Good morning" for his shipmates. Was it his imagination, or was Hoshi looking lovelier than ever today?

"Hey, Malcolm." Captain Archer's informality had never been more to his taste. Resisting the urge to whistle the armoury officer slipped into his seat, pretending to pay proper attention to the report of the ensign he relieved. Nothing was going to go wrong today. He could feel it in his water.

Trip Tucker's soft voice whispered against his cheek like the waft of a fragrant summer breeze. _I love you, Malcolm. Damn, it feels good to finally say it!_

As if that delicious breeze had turned chilly he shivered, a delectable prickling sensation starting at his nape and rippling all the way down to his prostate. Not as good as it had felt to hear it, of that he was sure!

Unconsciously he shifted, remembered pleasure swirling sweet as molten chocolate through his guts. That mouth - those hands - he could feel them still, coaxing a response wherever they should fall, chipping away at his defences, his officer's mask, until it shattered and left him free, responsive, _alive_ for the first time in forever. When a leathery, work-scuffed hand had closed around his cock...

"Lieutenant, are you unwell?" T'Pol's crisp enquiry at least had the advantage of drowning the end of his pathetic moan from the rest of the crew. Burning to the tips of his ears, Reed squeaked an unconvincing reply.

"Fine. Thank you."

"You look a little feverish, Malcolm." Now Archer was staring; was it any wonder he was redder than a victim of Batandi Sunstroke? "If you want to go see Phlox..."

"I'm fine, Sir. Really." With his testosterone levels hitting record highs the last thing he needed was a thorough Denobulan physical and Malcolm knew it. 

Silently promising to make that smug bastard of an engineer pay for the embarrassment later he sucked in a deep lungful of regulated air and forced a tight smile. "Just rushed this morning, that's all."

Archer grinned. T'Pol tipped an eyebrow. Satisfied neither was paying him any attention, Reed subsided into his seat and sank back into memory's embrace.

Slowly, gloriously, he began to melt.

The crisp lines of the ship around him softened. Voices muted out into a melodious hum. Isolated behind his desk he could feel a strong body cradling him, arms encircling, moist, sweet breath against his ear. His balls began to tighten; his pulse sped up.

_Damn it all!_

The emphatic boom of Travis's laughter jolted him out of his trance, leaving a sharp sting in the genital region and a wisp of disappointment coalescing into a nasty pressure point at the base of his skull. Biting his lip hard enough to cut, Reed dashed a dribble of sweat from his brow and counted, slowly, to twenty in Javanese. _Get a grip, man!_

He couldn't. Images of last night - of Trip's body under his hands, Trip's beautiful face contorted in ecstasy - drifted between him and the screen, the soft chirrups of the equipment around him mutating into the sighs and moans of his beloved in pleasure's grip. Swathed in his fluffy pastel place all his awareness and understanding gathered in the cradle of Reed's thighs. He'd imagined it of course, but nothing - _nothing_ \- could prepare a man for such reality!

Entranced, it took a while for the persistent buzz of an error on his console to penetrate and when it did Reed glanced up to find the whole bridge crew staring at his uncharacteristic inattention. "Ahem! With your permission, sir, I'll go and investigate that," he blustered, sliding off his seat at an oblique angle the better to hide his flustered condition from too-sharp Vulcan and boomer eyes. A broad grin creasing his craggy features, Archer nodded.

"In your own time, Lieutenant," he drawled kindly. Without thinking Reed lifted one of the hands covering his tender crotch to his brow in a playful salute.

Not for the first time he was thankful for the proximity to the turbolift of his aft station. Eyes already closing, he hit the right button on instinct and sank back against the chill support of the rear bulkhead.

His acute senses detected the slight shudder that passed through the compartment just in time and he sprang to attention, eyes wide, shoulders back, the perfect officer before the door could open to admit another passenger. When he saw who it was, his innards flipped over.

Commander Charles Tucker the Third stood staring like a fool, the furious bob of his adam's apple evidently a block to any attempt at cordial greeting. For what felt like an age the lovers stood gaping at each other.

Then, violently, Tucker lurched into the carriage and jammed the smaller man back against the wall. Hands groped, teeth scraping in the fiercest of first kisses, their groins grinding and shooting white-hot blasts of sensation to each man's farthest nerve ending. Blindly the Southerner thrust an arm back, connecting, somehow, with the control panel. 

The little capsule jolted to a halt. Neither man felt it. 

"Jesus, Malcolm," Tucker panted, the words hot and humid against Reed's tingling skin. "'m goin' crazy. Can't stop thinkin'... oh yeah, do that again!"

The frantic words combined with the heady pressure of a semi-erect cock throbbing against his sent what few inhibitions Malcolm Reed had left scattering to the stars. Desperate, he clawed his partner's broad back, broken half-endearments tumbling off his swollen lips. 

The error in the targeting scanners, the captain awaiting his report, they all dissolved until there was nothing but Trip's body on his, Trip's wet, wicked tongue tickling his tonsils, Trip's hands thrusting through zippers and buttons, each finger a heat-seeking missile aimed right at his hottest spots...

"Archer to Trip."

"Bollocks!"

The epithet zinged around the capsule, its echo still in Reed's ears when his befuddled companion found the relevant button - more by luck than judgement if his dazed expression was any guide - on the comm. "Go 'head, Cap'n !" Tucker hollered, hearty enough to make both men wince. 

"There's some kind of problem with the torpedo array, Commander; figured you might head down to the armoury and see if Malcolm needs a hand."

Horrified, Malcolm jerked his rumpled head. "Umm, no need Cap'n, he'll have it all in hand and you wouldn't want me questionin' his _professional competence_ , wouldja?"

Though the speaker's voice went up two octaves, horror twisting his exquisitely mobile features as he met the steel stare of the professional in question Reed felt himself relax, almost sagging with relief. Archer wouldn't dream - nobody would be stupid enough to say _that_ in close proximity to the most dangerous man on the ship!

"Understood. Archer out." The line cut midway through the snuffles of a pair of mildly hysterical ensigns.

In the process, Malcolm considered, it spared the bridge hearing the guffaws of two horny and faintly humiliated department heads trapped in an overheated lift. Carefully he jammed both hands into his hip pockets, easing the tormenting fabric of his jumpsuit off a half-deflated hard-on. When Trip's dark blue gaze was drawn south by the movement it started to inflate again. Fast.

"Aw, fuck!"

"I wish, Commander."

He meant the title as a reminder: it emerged as a flirtation. Tucker groaned.

"My quarters, Lieutenant. Twelve hundred hours. Screw lunch!"


	3. Back To Reality

A small sigh fluttered between Lieutenant Reed's pursed lips, a minimal acknowledgement of the gratifying tingle that spread from the base of his spine while he shifted restlessly in his seat. Lunch hadn't been the only thing properly screwed in that short break, and anyone who thought it true that man could not live by love alone had obviously never had the pleasure of a food-free mealtime spent with Charles Tucker the Third.

"Lieutenant?" His head jerked back, pale cheeks beginning to burn as he identified the two puzzled ensigns staring at him from the other side of the console. "Would you like to come to lunch with us, sir?" Hoshi Sato continued, her solemn tone belied by the sparkle in her almond-shaped dark eyes. 

No rebuke, he noticed; no disappointment that a superior officer had been caught maundering on duty. Just affectionate amusement that deepened when he slipped sideways out of his seat and tucked a hand, untidy but concealing, into his pocket. "Lead the way, Ensign," he answered lightly, ducking into her wake before Mayweather, her partner in crime, could intervene. 

Lunch. Company. Idle chatter. Yes, he could use that. Re-focus.

Get that bloody engineer out of his head for the rest of the day.

The Almighty, whatever and wherever He might be, was out to get him, Malcolm decided on entering the mess. Across at a large table surrounded by his own staff sat the source of all his pleasant embarrassments, holding court amid laughter and far too much pecan pie. 

At the sight of the three bridge officers Tucker waved, a quick smile crossing his conventionally handsome features. Then, duty done, he returned his full attention to the animated crewman at his side.

Malcolm Reed felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

He chewed through a tasty plate of tuna Nicoise that might as well have been wet shoe leather, forcing himself to respond when his two companions expected it and keeping his back carefully angled toward the engineering crowd. Was that it? Did he rate nothing more than a buddyish grin and a wave to be shared with whoever the hell happened to be around?

He told himself he was being unreasonable. That Trip wouldn't embarrass him by bounding across a crowded room like an oversized Labrador, and he wouldn't want it, either. Hadn't he been the one insisting, those first few wildly wonderful days, that they should be discreet, keep their changed relationship to themselves? And when he consented to go public, it had been on the strictest _No PDA_ terms possible. How could he sulk because his lover was behaving - unusually - as an officer should?

It was, Malcolm assured himself as he shuffled back toward the bridge behind his companions, food half-digested and lying like bricks across his belly, all the bloody captain's fault. If the day had started properly he wouldn't need to be fretting over the state of what he'd previously considered a deliriously wonderful love life. 

_Action stations. Weak as gnat's piss, and a false alarm to boot._

Still ruminating on his missed cuddle he eased himself back into his chair, assessing the data before him in an instant. Secrecy hadn't lasted long, thank goodness; a matter of days and everyone aboard had known the gorgeous chief engineer was off the market. Which had been just as well for his sanity, since keeping hands to self in public places had been more of a challenge than he could ever have anticipated.

The dark-haired Englishman's lips twitched into a smile so small even the most eagle-eyed of shift mates wouldn't spot it. And sometimes the effort just hadn't been worth making at all...


	4. Interlude Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the day progresses, Malcolm's concentration should be getting better. Somehow, it just isn't

His back ached. His eyes were gritty. Even as he hobbled down the hallways toward the mess every instinct Malcolm Reed possessed was urging him in the opposite direction, back to the bed abandoned in haste when the Olidari, for whatever inexplicable reason, dropped the pretence of welcome and opened fire on the alien vessel hanging as instructed above their most beautiful patch of wilderness. He should have known that enthusiastic welcome, all dancing girls and floral tributes, was a bit too good to be true.

Maybe now Archer would accept a change to his precious First Contact policy - whenever Phlox let him out of sickbay, of course. The only reasonable precaution was a policy of _shoot first_ on the grounds that ever-so-friendly aliens bearing gifts and offering the most scenic parking spots in their sector must inevitably be up to no good.

Worst of all - even worse than being attacked out of nothing in the middle of the night - had been hearing the exhausted voice of his lover cracking over the comm. Engineering had been swamped; the armoury almost overwhelmed. For hours at a time Reed hadn't spared a thought for his other half.

Then he'd heard him, broken-down and almost defeated. Only almost, because Trip Tucker would never entirely give in, but sounding so tired and lifeless it almost broke the Englishman's heart. Nothing short of a torpedo determined to launch itself from the tube would have kept him from comforting the other man.

Unfortunately that's exactly what he had been dealing with. 

Equally exhausted shipmates swayed around him, the inadvertent jostling that would usually raise every hackle barely permeating his cotton-wool mind. He was used to overwork. Crises were par for the Enterprise course. Food, wash, sleep. That was what he needed.

_And sex._

The addendum entered his head in concert with recognition of the ruffled dark blond hair bobbing above the melee a mere few metres ahead. Reed's heart lurched. His throat parched.

Then Tucker turned around.

As if he sensed the hungry gaze devouring him. As if he could feel the need rolling in waves from his lover. Their eyes met. 

Time stopped.

Trip's head jerked. Crewmates slipped like rivulets around a rock as he dived sideways, through a discreet door just outside the main mess.

The bathroom.

Breathing got difficult. Suddenly, miraculously, Malcolm felt wide awake. A mild, sweet itch started at the base of his cock, spreading like nettle rash as he stumbled in his boyfriend's wake. They couldn't. He mustn't.

He had to.

His feet propelled him through the same door, the silence and the row of open cubicles registering on a purely subconscious level. All his attention fixed on the man waiting, leaned against the nearest urinal with arms loosely folded and full lips tweaked up into an irresistibly cocky smile. The air was thick. Sharp stabs, like static through a lowering storm, crackled across the narrowing gap between them.

One man lunged. The other succumbed. Kissing frenziedly they fell into the closest stall, deaf to the slam of the door behind. Elbows and shoulders banged the flimsy partition walls. If there was any pain, Reed didn't feel it.

Clumsy hands wrenched his clothing. Cool air tickled his skin. He was giddy. Intoxicated. His tongue rasped over the rubble of stubble across his lover's jaw, the unfamiliar scratch making his whole mouth tingle. "More!" he begged, pouring the plea over Trip's tonsils. The response was gratifyingly immediate.

Large hands gripped his hips, pulling him bodily where he needed to be, his aching penis pressed full-length against the blond's. Vaguely cognisant of their location Malcolm crushed his open mouth to Trip's bared shoulder, his tongue lapping, drawing in the dizzying taste of grime, sweat and man. His wanton groan warmed the honeyed flesh.

Beyond their haven somebody banged a door. Water gushed. Subliminally aware, Reed dug his nails hard into his partner's backside, burrowing his face into that solid shoulder. Heat spread from his neck; Trip's mouth, sucking frantically, the mark he would leave a small price for the silence it maintained.

While impressions, sensations, ebbed and flowed, one realisation stayed needle-sharp and bright. He was coming. Right here, now, with crowds heading to the mess and unsuspecting crewmen dropping their loads on either side. He screwed his eyes tight shut, opened his mouth wide and on a rush of pure joy let the climax sweep him away.

Powerful spurts soaked his belly. Beneath and around him Trip shuddered, a muted sob seeping through Malcolm's bruised skin. Panting, dizzy, the Englishman clawed through the crumpled layers of uniform falling off the other man's heaving shoulders, needing purchase, some grip on the prosaic in ecstasy's embrace. 

Soft lips worked up to the tender spot behind his ear. He felt the movement of each individual strand of hair before the gentle huff of Tucker's breathing. The touch of a tongue on his earlobe buckled his knees.

Then a bark of masculine laughter right outside their box almost stopped his heart.

Trip froze, his grip on Malcolm's buttocks tightening reflexively. Neither moved.

"Go grab a table, crewman." Travis Mayweather's deep voice instructed, much too close by. Above the splash and sigh of running water the hidden lovers caught another, unmistakable sound.

The mysterious crewman blew what Malcolm's mischievous grandmother had always called a _raspberry_ ; a long, lip-smacking snort of saliva and air. Over the outraged yelp of an affronted officer the outer door of the facility clanged again.

"All clear?" Tucker mouthed.

Reed nodded, tucking himself into his clothes as deftly as his still trembling fingers would allow. "You know what we've just done, right?" the Southerner asked - a rhetorical flourish if ever Reed had heard one. He nodded.

"We just had sex on duty."

"In a public place."

"In a public bloody convenience."

"Whoops." Having made himself mildly presentable Trip risked a peek beyond the door and stepped out into the main bathroom. "All clear. You're not mad?"

Pleasantly woozy, Malcolm couldn't have raised the energy for outrage even if he'd wanted to. "I should be - at myself," he admitted, hitching up his collar to conceal the faint pink smear where his neck felt most tender. "But God I needed that!"

"Right there with y', darlin'." Sheepish, the engineer reached out to smooth his lover's hair, fingertips lingering against the silky strands. "I don't know what you've done to me, Malcolm Reed. You're like a drug: I can't get enough, you're all I think about, all the time. If I didn't love you so much, you'd be drivin' me fuckin' crazy!"

"Right there with y' darlin'," Reed parroted ruefully, humour a shield against the giddy rush of joy welling up in his chest. From the slack, silly smile that graced his face, he gathered Tucker was experiencing a similar sensation.

"Dinner in my quarters tonight?" the engineer suggested hopefully. Malcolm laughed.

"Better stock up on a late lunch then," he said mildly, shooing his lover back into public view before him. "The last time we tried to eat there..."

"Hell, yeah!" Like a brother officer - a comrade - Tucker smacked him heartily on the back. "I'm still tryin' to get the tomato sauce outta the carpet! Hey, Hoshi! Grab me some water while you're there, okay?"


	5. Duty Calls

_Beep...beep...beeeeep!_

The error warning on the tactical systems had been set so low even T'Pol might miss it, but together with the flicker of a light in the corner of the console it was sufficient - usually - to alert the duty officer. When, Malcolm reflected as he killed the sound, said officer wasn't maundering like a hormonal teen over the memory of a clandestine encounter. 

He risked a peep around the bridge beneath his lashes, relived to discover his companions all ignoring him. T'Pol - of course - seemed to sense the momentary resting of his eyes on her and turned, but if she registered his irregular breathing she made no comment.

Reed sighed and stretched, ostensibly to ease the inevitable cramping of the buttock that accompanied too many hours sitting at one's post on a dull day. 

Carefully he re-set the scanners, moving methodically through tasks as natural as breathing, using the very familiarity of the routine procedure to calm his uncontrollable libido. "Okay, Malcolm?" Archer asked without diverting his gaze from the main screen.

"Minor blip, sir." _Typical. Just when you think he's oblivious, the bastard reveals eyes in the back of his head!_ "All under control."

"Never doubted it, Lieutenant." 

_Smug sod._ If he hadn't known it was impossible - he'd hidden enough erections beneath his desk over the years - Reed might have suspected Captain Integrity of getting his kicks from spying on him.

And if he was - well, was it really any more reprehensible than slobbering all over one's station in a lustful haze for a whole bloody shift?

It was all Trip Tucker's fault. Corrupting an upstanding officer. And no officer had ever been more eager to be corrupted...


	6. Interlude Three

"We wish you safe journeys, Captain - Lieutenant - Ensign." Bowing in turn to each of the officers attending him, the President of the Jargal Federation - a grandiose name for a group of rock fragments in the middle of nowhere, in Reed's considered opinion - backed into the airlock through an honour guard of his own underlings. 

Allowing Archer and Hoshi to mumble the appropriate responses he contented himself with a bow that conveniently concealed his sigh of relief that finally - finally - the voluble visitors were leaving.

The moment the airlock clanged he felt it. Tension leaking out. 

The Captain sagged against the bulkhead. The Comms Officer made a show of silently pulling out her hair. 

And the Armoury Officer staggered out into the open passageway, clutching his head as if it hurt. "Bloody hell, they can talk!" he exclaimed.

"You want to try playing translator for five of them when the UT's gone down," Hoshi informed him gloomily. "Captain, have you ever heard of a system called _performance-related pay_? I think Starfleet needs to look into it."

"I'll ask Admiral Forrest." Rolling his eyes, Jonathan Archer began to usher his subordinates ahead toward the turbolift. "And thanks. You've gone above and beyond today, both of you. Malcolm, if I'd known they were bringing a whole class to tour the ship..."

"Pity we were reliant on the UT and not Ensign Sato when the initial request was made, sir."

Through the shriek of her laughter the unexpected comm. hail sounded tinnier than ever. "Tucker t' Lieutenant Reed."

"Reed here, sir." In spite of himself Malcolm felt his heart lurch and he clenched his hands, concentrating on the small sting of nail into palm rather than the giddy sensation that voice always unleashed through his nervous system. 

He hesitated by the panel, waving his companions on where they would have waited. Head cocked, lips puckered up into a much too knowing grin, Archer flatly refused to see the hint.

"If you're free now I could use your help in Launchbay One." The luscious drawl was as near neutral as Tucker could manage, all professionalism in contrast to the highly irresponsible reactions it triggered behind the immaculate lieutenant's mask. Not trusting himself to speak, Reed arched an eyebrow.

"Go ahead," Archer invited cordially. "Hoshi, we'd better head back to the bridge. See you later, Malcolm."

"Aye sir," echoed faintly down the corridor in his wake. _What's the bastard playing at?_

Playing sheepdog to twenty-five over-excited Jargal teens had effectively prevented any fantasising, flirting or sneaky gropes in the maintenance shafts since breakfast. In fact, he'd been so busy trying to stop the little monsters jamming their fingers into the EPS grid or - much worse - Chef's cauldron of winter vegetable broth, he hadn't even had time to wonder what his other half was doing.

It seemed he was about to find out.

Deliberately he took his time, working his way through the ship toward the cavernous hangar where the shuttles stood side by side. That just the sound of his boyfriend's voice could unleash a butterfly swarm of sensations - excitement, schoolboy guilt, arousal and glee to name just the few he could positively identify - that couldn't be right, not after seven whole weeks together! Wasn't the gilding supposed to have crumbled off the gingerbread by now?

"Pull yourself together, Reed. He's been working on the weapons upgrade and got his fingers burned again."

And now he was talking to himself. In a public area. _Bloody marvellous!_

The heavy door swung open before his finger could connect with the keypad. "Took your time, Lieutenant."

"Sorry, Commander." The fluttery feeling in his stomach died down. Buttoned-up, toolkit in his hands, Tucker was hunkered down in the cockpit of Shuttlepod One with the control panels wrenched open and a mess of wiring tumbled like Rapunzel's golden locks into his lap. "I could've done with some of that to tie up the Jargal school party," he added amiably.

"Poor baby." Visibly amused by his snort the engineer shuffled into the pod, watching silently while the Englishman clambered aboard. Swift as a striking snake he lunged past, bringing the hatch down with a deep bass clang. "Gotcha!"

"What the..."

His protest disappeared into a hot, hard kiss, his unresisting body manipulated onto the narrow shelf that served as a bunk while hands groped and teeth began to clash. "I can't do it, Malcolm, can't get you out of my head," Tucker panted, his full weight pressed down on the slighter man. Reed expelled a hiss, both arms lifting automatically to anchor his lover in place. "You're in my blood, I can't stop thinkin' about you, need you now, before I lose my fuckin' mind!"

"God, yes!" Never a religious man, Malcolm had found himself hailing the Almighty on a regular basis since their first kiss. "I need - oh God I want..."

"Easy, darlin'." Blindly he groped, trying to prevent his mate's determined wriggling even though the man's activities had the pleasing side-effect of opening up the whole front of his uniform. 

And, he thought blearily, the friction of an aroused Tucker squirming against his whole exposed length was a pleasure all of its own.

Trembling hands despatched his bland standard issue boxers and the pleasure doubled.

"Ooohh, now ain't that the prettiest thing?" Trip sounded slurred - distant, though his hot breath fanned all too closely down the sensitive sides of Reed's straining phallus. Something wet and supple fluttered across the head and the younger man's rich moan echoed around the tiny craft.

The involuntary buck of his hips pressed the swollen organ deep into Tucker's mouth and when the Southerner sucked he saw stars explode beneath his eyelids. At the same time he became aware of a familiar scent, deep and musky; a ticklish sensation around his nostrils. His eyes flickered open.

Trip's engorged member in all its rosy splendour crowded his blurred vision. Suddenly ravenous, Reed raised himself from the shoulder, cupping his lips around the broad head. Trip twitched, the convulsion having the pleasing side-effect of pushing his mouth down harder onto Malcolm's cock.

Skin with the lush texture of plush velvet brushed across his tongue. Malcolm sighed, unconsciously burrowing deeper into the thin foam cushion that protected the bench, one hand lifted to cradle a sharp hipbone, lightly holding his mate in place. His head was spinning, all his understanding focussed on two points of achingly congenial contact at tonsil and groin. Careful, experimental, he relaxed his throat and let the thickness of his lover's staff slide down.

Trip's groan rippled around his own captive organ. He could feel its echoes, silvery waves of sound, spread up and out through his balls, making them tighten in a mind-stopping spasm. "More," he tried to say.

His tongue caught the thick underside vein. The body above him jolted.

This was heaven.

He forgot about the mechanics: gave himself up to the sensation until he was floating, clawing the man above him whose mouth worked magic, sending pulse after golden pulse of bliss to make him writhe, gulping and sucking while his desperate, pleasured mews wrapped themselves around Trip's slippery flesh. Heat surged from his loins. His mouth opened wide; his shoulders arched off the bench; and the tidal wave of orgasm carried Malcolm far away.

Salt heat spurted, coating his throat in strong, successive surges that made him gulp, instinct cutting through where complex cogitation was impossible. Dribbles of fluid escaped, running in rivulets of salt cream down the sides of his jaw and absurdly, incredibly, he felt each tiny trickle as sharply as if it were cut by razors. "Hmmm," he mumbled, slurping what Trip would, cautiously, have withdrawn. "Mmmmm."

"Damn, you're good, Mal." The words, purred into the head of his softened penis, seeped along its length to puddle comfortingly in his balls. Still adrift in the plashing afterglow Malcolm whimpered, mindlessly trying to press himself into the protective strength that enveloped him. 

Trip was moving. 

He didn't want that!

His hands felt disconnected, powerless to do more than paw at the blond while he shifted, gathering the limp weight of a helpless Englishman up to cradle against his chest. "You liked that, huh?" that glorious, treacly drawl cooed. 

A response was expected. Something coherent. Pithy.

"Hmmmm."

Under the circumstances, a triumph of English erudition. A positively Shakespearean ode. Or so Malcolm thought.

"Sonofabitch." The familiar epithet brushed through his hair on Tucker's puckered lips, coming to rest against his unlined brow. "Looks like I finally found a way to shut you up, Limey!"


	7. More Than All That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm's getting all pessimistic. Fortunately for him, someone's about to improve his mood...

_And how!_

Unconsciously he shifted, his upper body swaying forward as if to shield what was happening farther south. Fabric brushed across his tender genitals. Enterprise's diligent armoury officer, so intent upon his business, squeaked.

And brought himself hard and fast into a most uncomfortable reality.

His balls felt like granite. His fingers, usually so steady, trembled on the cool surface of his console. If he was asked to move within the next few minutes, the humiliation would be galactic.

And he didn't care.

His whole body throbbed. He could swear he tasted his beloved, sharp and slimy against the metallic tinge of blood that smeared his bitten lower lip. _Get a grip, man! Maundering yourself to an inconvenient orgasm because you haven't had your daily dose of Tucker!_

The air on the bridge, supercharged a second ago, became a crushing weight. Reed straightened against its suffocating pressure, risking a shaky exhale that seemed to hang, crystallised like the first breath outdoors on a frosty English morning. Maybe that was his problem.

Maybe those daily doses were gone?

Perhaps - just perhaps - Trip didn't crave his touch that desperately any more. 

The gratifying warmth around his loins dissolved with the internal organs he could feel merging into a gluey mess at the pit of his stomach. They hadn't made love last night. Or the night before. In fact the last time they'd been really intimate had been Monday, when Trip's _special knowledge_ had been used to soothe a frazzled, fractious armoury officer into a deep and dreamless sleep.

If that had all gone... well, they had more than mere sex to sustain their relationship and for that, Reed supposed, he should be profoundly grateful. 

In that lonely moment, recalling the wet bliss of that mouth around his cock, the tenderness of that succulent southern drawl in his ear when he was manipulated like a rag doll from an inverted position to loll with his head on the warm, furred wall of his man's solid chest, _small mercies_ were the last thing Malcolm felt like thanking.

He mumbled the appropriate farewells at the end of his shift; even managed to thank Hoshi and Travis for their dinner invitation while his stomach churned, revolted by the very thought of food. Engulfed in black gloom he meandered through the corridors to his own door, oblivious to the concerned looks of the few puzzled crewmen who crossed his path. He'd gone months without sex. A few days' abstinence within a strong and loving relationship couldn't hurt!

Still, his finger trembled against the keypad, the petulance of the over-indulged child rising to fill the achy void behind his ribs. _But I want it_ now _!_

The door hissed open. His vision blurred. 

Malcolm blinked. The image didn't change.

"Hey, darlin'." Pulling upright from a crouched position over the Armoury Officer's desk, his bare feet set apart and one glistening hand slowly being drawn from his rear, Trip Tucker smiled slackly at his stricken lover. "Um, you mind shuttin' the door? I wasn' t exactly plannin' on a public show."

"Sorry." The word emerged as a croak; watching his boyfriend reach backward again, fingers working their way down between taut buttocks, Reed was amazed to find he could manage even that. "What..."

"I've been missin' you, Malcolm." There was a definite hitch in the engineer's breathing; a minimal shiver that ran his whole glorious length when a well-aimed finger found an especially sensitive spot. "Ah figured Ah'd save us some time."

"Time?" Now he sounded like an especially slow-witted parrot. Undulating onto his fingers, Trip favoured him with a cross-eyed grin. 

"Get outta that uniform and into me, Mister Reed," he slurred, his free hand fluttering in a helpless gesture of, Reed supposed, assistance. "'s been too long."

"Oh, yes!" Raw happiness pulsed though his veins while the brunet hastened to obey that most welcome of instructions, almost wrenching the stitching of a zip in his eagerness. Thoughtlessly he doused his right hand in the pot of gooey cream Trip had been using, stretching for a thoroughly intoxicating kiss while working himself free of all that hateful, constricting cloth. The Southerner's muscles were slippery and soft, and the thought of how they had got that way was making Malcolm's head spin. "I need..."

With a grace he would have admired at any other time Trip slipped from his grasp and turned, planting his feet apart and his hands flat against the silvery cool of the bulkhead, thrusting his glistening backside in welcome. "Targeting scanners locked, Lieutenant," he rasped.

_No titles in the bedroom_. That one had gone by the board the first time they'd discovered the illicit thrill of hearing the workaday niceties in a more intimate setting.

"No." Appealing as it was, Malcolm had been dreaming of another view all day. Careful not to bruise the tender flesh in his urgency he took his man by the wrists and guided him back toward the neatly-made bunk. "I need to see you," he finished helplessly, his control of the situation slipping with the slide of their nude forms. "I want..."

"Understood." When his mouth was claimed in the sweetest of kisses Malcolm realised he was, completely, and that was what made Trip Tucker so unspeakably special. "Now, about those targetin' scanners," the engineer whispered, rather breathlessly, when oxygen depletion forced them apart.

"Locked and ready, Commander."

With Trip sprawled beneath him, long limbs already wrapping themselves around his length, it was all Malcolm could do to get the pledge out. Heat enveloped him, the grip of anal muscles around his engorged phallus almost painful at the first moment of penetration. He paused, every muscle tensed while he waited for the slow melt of the slippery walls. "Okay?"

"Better 'n okay." Always a man of action Trip rocked beneath him, creating those dizzying ripples of sensation that always made Malcolm whimper. "C'mon darlin', I need..."

No clarification was required. Powerless to hold his eyes open Malcolm began to move, each stroke longer, harder, less controlled than the last in answer to the appreciative grunts of his partner. Sweat slicked their bodies, additional lubrication for his hand when it squeezed between them to clamp around Trip's cock, pulling in tandem with his thrusts. Desperate to be closer, he lunged to claim a ravenous kiss.

Halfway through, it happened. His body began to sizzle and fizz. White lights flared behind his eyelids. The tightness, the pressure in his groin, began to swell, surging until he was engulfed by it, tossed like a cork on the stormy sea, his universe at once restricted and immeasurable because it was all Trip, all his lover, and that was all he ever wanted it to be.

"Oh, boy." An eternity later, still a puddle of insensate bliss slowly dribbling over his lover's chest, Malcolm felt the exhalation more than heard it. "You are somethin' else, Mister Reed, you know that?"

"Only to you, Mister Tucker." Lifting his head would require effort. Malcolm couldn't be arsed.

Instead he tried to snuggle closer, aware of an absurd desire to purr in response to the delicate petting strokes Trip let fall wherever he could reach. "I thought you'd got tired of me," he mumbled, all his usual self-censorship mechanisms offline. Trip snorted gently.

"Now why'd you go thinkin' something as dumb as that?" he crooned, abandoning the petting in favour of a sweet, simple cuddle. Malcolm snuffled into his shoulder.

"We haven't had a shag since Monday," he pointed out, persuaded to move by the not-so-subtle prodding of his partner. Sleepy sea-coloured eyes wide with confusion filled his vision. 

Drowning didn't feel so bad after all he decided, too distracted by the warmth of the body cradling his to wince at his own whimsy. "Oh, Malcolm," Tucker sighed, giving the brunet a light chuck under the chin. "You really think a couple 'a nights too beat to fuck means that? Hell, I thought you were smart!"

He was expected, Reed discerned, to take umbrage. Faced with that goofy smile, to say nothing of the hand that ran in soothing swipes up and down his spine, it would have seemed like blasphemy. 

"You know we're more than all that, yeah?" Evidently Trip wasn't sure. The resulting anxiety attack had the side-effect of making him grab the armoury officer closer, as if he wanted to absorb the man's very being through his pores. "Sure I like a dick up my ass as much as the next guy, but it's not what makes me come runnin' every time you call."

"You don't usually have to: I'm there waiting."

Palms roughened by a lifetime of "fiddling" cupped his face, the blunt fingertips moving in soothing circles at the crest of Malcolm's cheekbones. "I like sex," Tucker admitted, low and gravelly. "Hell, with you I love it! But it's this I really miss, every minute of the day, even when we're cramped up in the cannon housing. Bein' close to you, holdin' you, feelin' like there's nothin' else in the universe but us. Maybe one day the sex'll get boring. Maybe we'll just come through the door, grunt and go to sleep. But we'll do it in each others' arms, Malcolm Reed, and that means everythin' to me."

"Oh, love." His throat closed up alarmingly around the words. Mutely Malcolm hugged his partner tight, reliant on touch to convey what words never could. Trip responded in kind and where once his obsessive cleanliness might have led the Brit to protest he realised he liked the way the residual dampness between them gave the impression of two bodies slowly melting into one.

Malcolm couldn't think of a better way to end his day.


End file.
